


The Claw Decides

by hermione_vader



Series: Plastic Armor [6]
Category: DCU, Dark Knight Rises (2012), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), Toy Story Series (Movies), X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-24
Updated: 2013-01-24
Packaged: 2017-11-26 17:07:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/652515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hermione_vader/pseuds/hermione_vader
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Avengers/Toy Story fusion AU.  The toys have escaped Sunnyside, but can they escape the dump?  Part 6 in the Plastic Armor series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Claw Decides

Tony woke up on a pillow of spoiled frozen spinach with a worn-out tennis shoe digging into his legs. He propped himself up in the darkness and the acrid smells poured into his nose. "Where am I?"

"On your way to the dump," Loki's voice replied, "along with the rest of us."

"What happened? I can't remem---"

"Batman put you on default mode," Natasha's voice said, floating somewhere to his left.

"Return of the super-nut," Hamm added.

"And then we found your Spanish mode, tried to bust out, but we ended up here instead," Mystique explained. Her voice dangled somewhere near Natasha's. "Oh, and Steve's back."

"He is? Steve! Are you there?" Tony fumbled around, hoping to grab the Captain's arm. Instead, his arms tangle up in a broken necklace. Then he processed the rest of Mystique's words. "Wait, I have a what mode?"

Two hands pulled the chain off his arms. Steve's hands. "Tony, I'm here."

"So am I," another voice rasped from some far off corner. 

"EVIL BAT FELL WITH US," Hulk stated.

Tony shuddered and clutched Steve. "I-we should have gone with you. It's my fault we're here. You're only here because you have a weird sense of righteousness. I'm...I'm..."

"Sorry?" Hamm's voice hung a few feet away from Natasha's and Mystique's. 

"Yeah, what the piggy bank said." 

Steve returned the hug. "Don't be. We'll get out of this, like always."

Tony relaxed his grip, but the broken bottles and limp shoelaces beneath him reminded him that Steve could be wrong. Maybe this time, he was. But those words got stuck in Tony's plastic throat.

No one said too much else as the truck hurtled forward. Tony kept glancing into the black corner, hoping to spy those pointy ears or the cape flapping. Instead, he found himself staring at some broken Tinker Toys and a banana peel. He was caught between imagining Batman leaping out of the shadows and the dump's slow decay eating at his red-and-gold helmet until it finally nibbled on his mind. Steve's plastic frame anchored Tony as he teetered on the edge of believing his daymares. He tried to focus on Steve's touch, the trucks' smells, the crunching under his feet, anything real, but thost pointy ears kept invading his mind. 

After an eternity of darkness, hugs, and rotting spinach and bananas, Tony tumbled into some dim light. As soon as he hit the ground, it rolled, scooting the rafts of moldy food, broken appliances, and worn-out clothes to some unseen end. A couple of tin cans and a few coins from a pair of threadbare jeans floated up in front of Tony, gluing themselves to a magnetic conveyor belt above. A thick ledge sat below the top conveyor belt and ran the length of the bottom one. Tony had an idea.

"Everyone grab a piece of metal! A big one!" he called to the others.

Loki clung to a mixing bowl. Thor wrapped himself around a giant spoon. Clint and Natasha jumped on a bent music stand. The others found similar things, and Tony scoured the waves of junk for his own metal vehicle when he heard that dreaded rasp.

"Help! Captain! Stark!" Batman growled, stretching his arms out. An old television had pinned his legs down. He pushed a few pieces of trash out of his away, but he couldn't crawl out. 

Tony ignored him, grabbed a rusty whisk, and drifted up to the magnetic belt. But Steve ran back and dragged Batman out from underneath the television. Steve would do that because Steve didn't believe that bad toys existed. To Steve, everyone could come around. Everyone was an Iron Man doll. So Steve slung his arm around Batman, took hold of a cheese grater, and joined Tony and everyone else up top.

"Look! Daylight!" Thor shouted, pointing to a narrow glow at the end of the magnetic belt.

Tony took a deep breath and focused on the too-bright light at the end. Almost out. Maybe Steve wasn't wrong.

"I don't think that's daylight," Mystique said.

Enormous flames licked and burned at the center of a ballroom of trash. Tony hadn't felt heat close to this level since Phil briefly lost him in the sand during their only trip to the beach together. Even when they were halfway down the line, he could sense how oppressive it would be, like a thousand summer afternoons wrapped up in a flickering ball. He looked back at Steve and Batman, who both pointed at a lever on the ledge below.

"Allow me," Batman said. He leapt down and Tony noticed hope shining in Steve's eyes. Batman paused at the lever, reached for it...and ran away down the ledge. "Where's your kid now, Captain?"

Tony looked past Steve's stunned expression to see Batman trip on the ledge and tumble into the junk-sea again. He couldn't see what happened next because the magnetic belt ended, sending Tony tumbling into the pit, a few feet in front of the flames. The fire twirled and bowed, orange and yellow stretching out towards his red feet. Tony crawled back, trying to scamper up the junky incline, but he lost traction on a puddle of candy wrappers and spools of thread and slid closer to the fire. Steve landed next to him, and the other toys followed. Their faces morphed into matching pictures of horror. A hand grabbed Tony's---Mystique's eyes pleaded with him. Tony grabbed Steve's hand. Everyone waited for their Captain's instruction.

Steve squeezed Tony's hand and raised his head, staring directly at the flames, jaw set tight. "Avengers assemble."

Thor took Steve's other hand, then Loki's, and Loki took Hamm's hoof. Mystique held Natasha's hand, and she reached out to Clint who reached for Peggy's, and so on down the line until they reached the last Commando and all of them sat in a semi-circle around the teasing flames, flickering in and out, not quite touching them. They would burn together.

New trash pushed them closer to the center, and Tony could almost see himself melting. His legs would go first with his knees popping and hissing before blending into his thighs, and then his arms and torso would next until the flames closed in on his head, circling the helmet and merging red and gold with orange and yellow, creating the Invincible Iron Goo. One giant flame leapt out over him and Tony braced himself when he heard a lurching groan.

A gigantic claw scooped all of them up. Excess junk fell out of the gaps between the talons, but Tony and the other toys sat in the cushy if putrid middle. A deep, garbled voice echoed above them.

"Ladies and gentlemen, there's no need to panic. We'll have you out of here in a moment," the low voice assured. "And give my regards to your Captain."

"BANE?" Steve shouted.

"Who's Bane?" Tony asked. How the heck would Steve recognize that voice?

"Ah, there you are, Captain," the voice continued. "Is everyone accounted for, dear?"

"Uh, yeah...dear," Steve answered, looking flustered.

"Dear?" Clint repeated.

"We eloped on Oahu," Bane explained. 

"It was a game! I swear!" Steve interjected.

The claw swung wide, and Tony's head began to spin.

A fast-talking voice came over the intercom. "Oh, man, what do I say? Hey, I'm Deadpool and you're all amazing and do you guys have any openings---"

A normal voice interrupted that one. "Ignore them, folks. Steve, we're going to you and your friends out of here." Tony could see the speaker now: a soldier doll who looked a bit like Steve and the Commandos. 

"A Bucky doll?!" the Commandos blurted out.

"It's a long story," Steve told them. "But they're friends. Don't worry."

The claw glided over to the based of the crane and the Bucky doll told them it was okay to land. The burly, masked action figure at the controls nodded. Steve and Tony shuffled everyone in front of them and helped them climb out. Hulk went first and the others jumped down in quick succession. Tony started giving Steve a leg-up when two hands rose up out of the refuse and yanked on their ankles.

"You're not going anywhere," Batman hissed, dragging them back down into the wrappers and thread and stickers and rotting plums. "Not after what you did to my city."

Tony pushed down, trying to force himself out of Batman's grip. "Your city?"

"You live in a daycare," Steve pointed out as he twisted his leg away from Batman.

"I live in a paragon of order that you nearly destroyed with your chaos." Batman grabbed both of Tony's legs now.

"Chaos? A little chaos never hurt anybody, Batsy," a nasal voice quipped. Tony looked around, but couldn't find the speaker. "Now, order: that's given more than a few people some boo-boos."

Batman's eyes grew wide and his grip slipped. "I destroyed you."

"Who?" Tony asked as he wriggled forward.

Batman tightened his grip again. "It doesn't matter. You matter, Stark. We could have been great, you know. You could have been indispensible! The Justice League needs you!"

"Sorry. I'm already on a team." Tony grasped Steve's arms and shook off Batman's hands.

Batman slipped farther down towards the claw's tips. "No, you aren't! We initiated you! A thousand toys would have begged for your place! You don't know how lucky you are!"

"Yeah, I think I do." Tony leaned down and looked Batman in the eye. "I'd rather burn with the Avengers than play with the Justice League."

"Be careful what you say, Stark. I am vengeance! I am the night! I am BaAAAAAUUUGH!!!" Batman's lower half dangled over the trash mountains when the claw clenched itself through his back. The crack rang throughout the hall of junk, over the spoiled food and broken appliances. 

Bane's voice came over the intercom again. "When Sunnyside is ashes, you have my permission to die."

"What the heck does that mean?" Bucky asked as Tony and Steve leapt to the base of the crane.

Bane shrugged and pushed a lever forward. "I don't know. It simply sounded good."

"No more spy movies," the warrior princess next to him murmured.

Tony couldn't move as the trash fell from the claw. He swore he heard a faint but distinct scream as it hurtled to the floor. When the claw emptied, he leaned over the edge of the crane and glimpsed the edge of a black cape and two pointy ears sticking out underneath a half-empty soda bottle. A pair of black legs lay a few feet away from the bottle.

"Don't worry, Tin Man," the nasal voice from earlier said. "He earned it the day he took a candle and a red crayon to his best friend's face."

A hand patted his shoulder. Tony glanced to his right and saw a clown doll with a red, half-melted permanent smile. Tony stagged back, nodded, and went to join his friends.

He fell into an ocean of hugs. Hulk picked him up and refused to put him down until Thor grabbed him and wouldn't let go. He embraced all of them in turn, and then he got to Steve.

"Thanks for coming back," he whispered, wrapping his arms around his Captain. 

"C'mon, Tony, you knew I'd come back."

"No. I didn't."

Steve looked him straight in the eye. "I'll always come back for you."

The new toys crowded around Steve and Tony and bombarded him with questions and comments.

"So this is an Iron Man. You were all the rage about a decade ago, weren't you?" the masked one, Bane, asked.

"Yeah, we were," Tony answered. 

"I thought you'd be taller," an old man action figure commented. Tony didn't know they even made old man action figures.

"He's rather handsome, though," the warrior princess said.

"So can I call you Robert? I just like that better," a red-and-black figure told him.

Tony smirked. "Go for it."

"Okey-dokey, Robert!" The red-and-black guy gave him a double thumbs-up.

The Bucky doll pushed past them and shook Tony's hand. "Give him a break, guys. Bucky Barnes, great to meet you."

"Uh, okay, nice to meet you, too." Tony shook Bucky's hand quickly. "Steve, who are these toys?"

Steve shrugged and grinned. "They belong to this kid, Nick. He found me when I left Sunnyside. I'll tell you the rest on the way home."

"How are we going to get home?"

"The trucks haven't paid visits to your side of town yet," Bane said. "You can definitely catch a ride on one of them."

"Why does he know that?" Tony asked Steve, glancing sideways.

"Because he likes to keep track of that stuff."

"Okaaaayyy..."

"Well, we'll see soon, Steve," Bucky said, leading his band of toys away. 

Tony blinked. "We will?"

Steve wrapped an arm around him. "Don't worry, I've got it all worked out."

Tony wouldn't worry. He was too tired to worry anymore. So he walked off into the dawn to find the rest of his friends, arm in arm with his Captain.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Claw Decides [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3852871) by [blackglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackglass/pseuds/blackglass)




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